How To Make a Pendant Light from an Old Pot Lid

From reader Eric Smillie comes this great tutorial for making a hanging pendant light, inspired by old enamel barn and factory lamps. The real deal can be rather pricey, but Eric came up with a clever way to get the look for a lot less. Using old cookware found at secondhand stores, he fashions new lamps using enameled pot lids as the shades. The final lamp will depend on the pot lid you buy, and can look either industrial, rustic, or cottage.

What You Need

Materials

Mounting hardware for attaching the lamp to the ceiling, which includes screws, a bracket, and the wire connectors.

Ceiling canopy, on the left, with matching screw caps.

Cloth-wrapped cord. The length depends on how low you want it to hang. I use 6 feet per lamp, counting on a loss of 6 inches on either end for wiring, which leaves plenty in case someone has high ceilings.

A short length of standard all thread lamp pipe and two lamp nuts (to the left of the orange wire connectors).

Light socket

Tools

Electric drill

File

Scissors

Phillips screwdriver

Hammer

Wire strippers

Electrical tape

Masking tape

3/8″ all-purpose drill bit

5/16″ masonry drill bit

Nail punch

Instructions

1.Drill a hole in your lid. Start by taping the area you'll be drilling, then mark the exact spot using your nail punch (or nail) and hammer. Start the hole with the masonry bit and switch over to the regular bit. A bit of oil on the hole will help speed things up. So will hammering a nail through once the hole is deep enough. Once you finish the hole, you will likely need to widen it just a hair with the file or the grinder drill bit so that the lamp pipe will fit through freely.

3. Wire it up. Put the cord through the lid. Cut back the cloth on the two wires and strip off half an inch of insulation on each. Screw them to the bottom half of the socket. The black wire goes to the brass screw, the white wire to the white screw. Press together the two halves of the socket together and screw them tight.

Have a really great DIY project or tutorial that you want to share with others? Let us know! We love checking out what you're making these days, and learning from our readers. When you're ready, click here to submit your project and photos.

Apartment Therapy supports our readers with carefully chosen product recommendations to improve life at home. You support us through our independently chosen links, many of which earn us a commission.